JAPANESE whalers have seen a lot from opponents in the Antarctic: rotten butter in bottles, smoke bombs, propeller entanglements, even the odd bare bottom.

But they haven’t seen anything like the Ady Gil. Nor heard anything like a hair-raising Maori haka this outrageous black speedboat plans to blow in their direction when it finds them.

Looking more like Batman’s spacecraft than a boat, the biodiesel-powered trimaran arrived in Hobart yesterday on its way to the Southern Ocean, with its eponymous Californian businessman owner on board.

A Hollywood production-house owner, Mr Gil bought the former globe-girdling record-setter Earthrace for seven figures from its New Zealand skipper Pete Bethune and, repainted and renamed, donated its use to Sea Shepherd to fight whaling.

”I believe the cause has to be attacked from a variety of angles,” Mr Gil said. ”[Sea Shepherd leader] Paul Watson is the firing arm.”